


Yclept

by TheHatterTheory



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Steter Secret Santa 2014, eventual smuts, stiles and peter are not soulmates, tw in the author notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 11:49:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2849831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHatterTheory/pseuds/TheHatterTheory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yclept: adj; having the name of; called</p><p>The day Stiles meets his soulmate is easily the worst day of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nezstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/gifts).



> Nezstorm asked for murder boyfriends or fake/pretend relationship. I was a total doof and didn't connect her chat name to her tumblr (ha-ha) and mentioned murder boyfriends in chat. So I started rewriting and my trope wires crossed. Ta-da? I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> TW: Nonconsensual kissing, assault (neither of those events between Peter Hale and Stiles) a panic attack, the lying inherent in a pretend relationship, characters masking grudges with concern, when soulmate marks go awry. I think that's it. 
> 
> Merry Christmas!

The first flush of nervousness was past and anxiety had long since set in.

"Lydia, do I look okay?" He asked again, interrupting her tirade about stupid underclassmen.

"You look fine," She repeated for the umpteenth time, clearly growing annoyed by the repeated question. "Stop being such a girl."

"Not all of us can meet our soulmates in high school when fashion is easy."

"There was nothing  _easy_  about the flannel crap you used to wear," Lydia informed him, irritation obvious. "I still can't believe he picked a club for tonight. You'd think he'd want something more intimate."

"Not everyone has the same hobbies Lyds."

"Call me that again," The voice warned behind him.

"You can't cut my balls off through a computer."

" _Yet_ ," She hissed scathingly. "I still think you should have told him dinner first. You're not twenty one anymore. Clubs are so-" She let the pointed silence hang, ringing with disapproval. 

It wasn't like he'd suggested the club, he'd just agreed over text. That's all he'd really had time for between a study group and getting to the lab on time. So it hadn't been the epic meeting his dad had always described, or even Lydia's 'cute' discovery. Not everyone could have dramatic, movie worthy first meetings. Sometimes they happened in coffee shops when two people were in a hurry and had places to be. He just happened to have that kind of luck.

"Yeah yeah," He muttered, avoiding the camera so she couldn't see him making a face. "Maybe he's twenty one."

"You didn't ask?"

"Didn't have time, he was in a huge rush and I had class. He looked older than that though," He added thoughtfully, checking his clothes again. Not bad for a club, but not- He did look too old, too serious, even with the outfit Lydia had helped him pick out. Not the kind of person that belonged in a club. "I need to stop studying so much. It's giving me wrinkles."

Lydia made a disgusted sound and he checked his screen, saw her rolling her eyes. "You're fine. You're better than fine. Now go pace somewhere else, I have a paper and you're distracting me.  _Take pictures_. I want to see what this guy looks like and whether or not I should pity you."

"Yes ma'am," He said, saluting and leaning forward to exit out of the call before she did only to fail when her screen went dark without a goodbye. Making a face, it was only reflected back at him before he shut his laptop off.

Now to wait. And pace.

His apartment was too tiny to pace without feeling even more trapped than he already did.

What if his soulmate wanted to come up? Shit- What if he took one look and bolted? The studio was tiny and a goddamned mess, with clothes piled on the bed and books everywhere, loose notes and post its covering every available surface.

The movies never covered this. The books and high school health class- None of it. He'd been living in New York for over two years and had figured his soulmate was back in California, or _somewhere else_ because he hadn't come across him, so he'd never bothered with looking, putting out ads or posting online. He'd been focused on school, waiting for it to happen to him, willing to be patient. By the time he was twenty five his first meeting had become more of an occasional fantasy, something he thought about when he went back home and saw his friends and family with their soulmates.

Shit, he thought again, giving his apartment another distracted once over. He didn't even own a couch.

His phone buzzed on the table, rattling in the quiet. Diving for it and only succeeding in nearly throwing it to the floor, he fumbled and hit the answer button.

"Peter?"

"Pr-" Peter audibly struggled through his name.

"Stiles," He supplied helpfully, wincing. "Stiles is fine."

"I'm on the corner."

"I'll meet you outside," He managed around the thing tickling his throat and threatening to strangle him. He checked his pocket, fumbled for his keys and turned off all the lights, not ending the call but holding the phone in a death grip, terrified of dropping it because his palms wouldn't stop sweating. And wouldn't that be attractive? Sweaty palms. His dad had never said anything about sweaty palms.

Then again, they were going to a club. At least he could hide the nervous sweating there.

"Be down in a second," He promised, slamming the door and locking up behind him.

He nearly killed himself going down seven flights of stairs before walking into the wall of frigid, February air. "Where are you?"

"124th and FD."

A car horn honked to his left and he spun, saw a hand waving out of a driver's window and jogged down, ending the call.

"Hi," He said, opening the door and slipping in. It smelled like the inside of his old lacrosse bagdespite looking like it had been freshly cleaned, even vacuumed. "It's been forever since I've been in a car," He admitted with a nervous laugh. His jeep was still in California, where it was probably safe, rusting out in his dad's garage.

Peter smiled weakly, pulling back out into traffic. "So you go to school at Columbia?"

"Yeah. Neurosciences," He said, treading the line between wanting to impress and not wanting to sound like he was bragging.

"Wow. That's-"

Stiles waited patiently for the end of the sentence, but it never came. "Are you a student?"

"No," Peter began, fingers tightening on the wheel before he relaxed them. "I'm taking time to figure out what I want to do with my life. I figure why waste money on school until I figure me out." One shoulder rose in a tense, tight shrug, eyes still on the road.

Stiles wished body language hadn't been covered in his psych courses. "Smart," He said, sounding unsure even to his own ears. "Most people end up trapped in something they hate because they don't think." There, that sounded slightly better. He hoped.

"So your name. Like, I get unusual names makes it easier, but what kind of name is that? Were your parents sadists?"

"Polish," Stiles retorted more sharply than he'd intended to. "It was my grandfather's name," He added, carefully modulating his tone. "It's kind of a thing for my family."

"So you're really traditional? Like, old country?"

"Not really, thus Stiles."

Peter lapsed into silence and Stiles struggled to find something to say, anything. It all sounded so lame. He'd been expecting sparks, maybe. Very definitely, actually. The clicking into place of destinies and personalities, the almost instantaneous bond his friends had found, had quietly whispered about or on one memorable occasion, shouted about at the top of their lungs.

Except it wasn't happening. Just a silence fraught with tension.

Writing it off to nerves, to Peter driving, to a new and life altering experience being unexpectedly thrust on them both, he worried his lip, stared out the window and watched several blocks go by.

"So what club are we headed to?"

"Jack's Box."

"Oh. I've never heard of that one."

"A friend of mine is spinning tonight."

"Cool." He waited for more but nothing was forthcoming.

Maybe he was a disappointment. Maybe- Maybe Peter had been hoping for someone younger, someone hotter. Maybe he'd been holding out for a woman. The name wasn't common, might have confused him-

Stiles tasted blood in his mouth, had a thousand useless facts springing to mind, on the tip of his tongue and ready to let loose in a deluge that would probably send Peter running in the opposite direction. He might even abandon the car, Stiles still inside, filling the silence with desperate small talk.

When they finally pulled into a parking garage, he was almost thankful for the excuse to escape.

* * *

The bar was a bright, blacklight green island in a sea of people. Stiles smiled and nodded at Peter, barely heard him shouting that he was going to go find someone to say hi and he'd meet him at the bar over the loud bass slamming and thumping around him like an assault.

He'd been to clubs before. He'd even hit a few really good raves with Danny and Lydia. But this was suffocating, too many people packed into too tight a space. The bar was lined with people, almost impossible to get to. Forcing himself between two guys facing away from each other and hoping they weren't there together, he waited patiently for the bartender to get to him.

No one looked older than twenty one. Maybe he  _should_  have asked Peter his age. Christ, some of them didn't even look legal.

He ordered a beer, shouted domestic and prayed that meant something besides budweiser. The cup came to him with barely any head and tasted flat. It wasn't budweiser, but it wasn't anything he'd qualify as good either.

Peter finally came back, blonde hair lit up in the blacklights and teeth glowing in a smile. He reached out, a hand held in offering. At last he was smiling, even looked excited. Stiles took his hand, let himself be pulled back into the throng, beer left on the bar.

Thank god for Danny's insistence he learn how to dance, at least a little. Strong, sure hands rested on his waist, fingers sliding up beneath his shirt to hold his hips. Peter was taller than him by a few inches, brown eyes almost black in the flashing lights, teeth bright white and glowing. Stiles let himself smile back, draped his arms over his shoulders and followed the lead, ground his hips into Peter's and tried to forget he didn't even know Peter's last name. It wasn't any different than the few one night stands he'd had in the past. Just- There was no difference.

He tried not to let that thought bother him either.

The beat changed, grew heavier and heavier, the crowd growing more stifling, pushing him closer to his soulmate. Peter's hands wandered, wet palms and fingers over perspiring skin. Pain jostled his side, someone's errant elbow, drawing his gaze away for a moment.

The hand was clumsy, a little rough on his jaw, forcing him to look back. Lips mashed against his, teeth clicking together in the clumsy approximation of a kiss. The bite of liquor and chemical was overpowering for a moment before he settled into it, trying to match Peter's clumsy enthusiasm.

That was- Okay. Okay. Peter was just nervous, like him.

Pulling back a little, the air too hot and wet to breathe in, he smiled against Peter's lips, looked up and saw endless pools of black surrounded by white.

Peter nosed him again, mouth smiling against his before starting a new kiss, tongue more insistent, more confident than it had been before, fingers gripping his waist tight and pulling him close, slipping down to his ass to settle in his back pockets. Kiss, break, breathe in hot, humid air tinged with sweat and smoke, the sharp chemical taste of vodka fading through each kiss. The songs changed, moving into one another and his shirt clung to his skin. Hands became bolder, squeezing through his jeans, moving up to grope at his back, his sides.

He forgot the awkwardness, ground into Peter, tangled his hands in Peter's hair.

Peter shouted into his ear, promising to be back in a minute, the words difficult to understand over the music. He nodded quickly, let his hands fall away.

Stiles watched him leave, lost himself in the throng of dancers, embracing the dizzying euphoria of the music and finally, _finallyfinallyfinally_  finding the one he'd been promised when he was only three years old and too young to understand what the name on his arm meant.

One song switched into another.

And another.

And another.

Dancers moved against him, boxed him in and he danced with them, ignored the niggling sense of unease as one song moved into the next and another began after that, moving into yet another. Despite not keeping count or checking the time, he knew something was up, knew enough time had passed that Peter should have been able to find him in the crowd.

He tried to cut through the crowd, first heading for the bar and, when the crowd seemed to push him closer and closer to the far wall, heading for that instead, moving with the surge of bodies until he was off the dance floor, uncomfortably hot and- Anxious. Again.

Where was Peter?

Stomach too empty but still queasy, he cut his way to the bathrooms and slipped in past the line, heading straight for the sinks. His face was splotchy red, from the heat or the slowly creeping mortification, he wasn't sure. Settling for splashing cold water on his face, he kept an eye on the mirror on the off chance Peter passed by behind him.

He didn't, the throng of men moving, a pair slipping into a stall and slamming the door, stumbling into the walls as the door slammed shut. Cheering and catcalling started, echoing in the tiny room, amplified and almost overtaking the beat thrumming from the dancefloor outside. A loud moan echoed off of the tiled walls, loud encouragement coming from the stall and from everyone around it.

It was too much, his stomach turning over, the first breathless pants of a panic attack trying to fit into his lungs and failing.

Bolting, he squeezed past the line, ignored the loud voices and the loud music, felt the crowd pressing in, threatening to drag him under and drown him in the center of it all.

He slammed into the cold air, the sweat still soaking his skin chilling, dripping and rolling down his neck and back. Blessed relief, clearing his head, the first shivering inhale sharp and clear. There were people milling about outside, smoking, maybe cruising each other, he didn't know, didn't care as he made his way back to the parking garage, just wanting to leave the club behind.

Not sure of he expected Peter's car to even be there, he just needed to know, to see if he'd been left behind, if Peter had fled like a man fleeing his sentencing.

The car was there, wedged between a van and SUV. Somehow, that was worse. Peter had been in the club the entire time, leaving him alone on the dance floor.

He tapped a text and waited, leaning against the car and hugging himself to ward off the cold that felt like it was going to freeze the sweat still beading his skin.

Footsteps echoed through the level, Peter's voice calling out a sharp 'hey', drawing his attention away from his attempts to rub warmth into his arms. "Sorry about that," Peter said, running a hand through his hair, flinching when it caught in a snarl. Nothing else, no explanation, just the off hand apology that made Stiles want to throw his hands in the air and scream.

"Where were you?" He asked, trying to keep his voice even. Peter stepped closer, bobbing unsteadily for a moment like a cork in water, before grabbing his wrists and pulling him close, kissing him again. Stiles pulled away before he had a chance to deepen it, repeating the question.

"My friend wanted some help," Peter told him, sweaty skin sticking against his. "There was a problem with the audio glitching."

Which sounded reasonable, except he'd waited over an hour, between dancing and standing in the parking garage and Peter hadn't even tried to shoot him a text or call him to let him know what was going on.  _Nothing_.

"I think it's time for me to call it a night," He said, trying for gentle even though he wanted to yell, to demand a better explanation.

"Yeah," Peter nodded, stepping back and rounding the car to get in the driver's side. The locks were loud, the knob coming up. Stiles opened the door, tried not to let out a tired sigh as he dropped into the seat and closed the door, putting too much force into it and slamming it.

A soft hand grabbed his, fingers slotting through his. Stiles looked over, saw Peter leaning and saw nervous anxiety.

Yeah, he got that, kept forgetting that he wasn't the only one who was dealing with a life altering change dropping into his lap. Leaning in, he met Peter halfway, hoping there was some sort of symbolism there that the universe would pick up on.

The kiss deepened, became hot, tongues sliding, Peter's hand slipping under his shirt to rest on his stomach. Stiles felt the door and window against his back, wasn't sure where to put his hands.

The kiss broke, Peter moving to bury his nose in his neck, hot breaths puffing out into the hollow of his throat before he felt Peter's mouth latching down and sucking, tongue swirling a pattern that felt good, amazing actually, and he wanted to let him keep doing what he was doing, except the door panel was digging into his back and he knew a hickey wouldn't look nearly so good in the afternoon when he had to face his adviser.

"No hickies dude," Stiles tried, pushing lightly against Peter, trying to bring him back up to his face.

Peter only shifted enough that he was licking and sucking the corner of Stiles' jaw, crawling even further across the console and into the seat, hands slipping up higher, rucking up Stiles' shirt until his middle was exposed to the cold.

"Peter, no," He tried, pushing at the body pressing into him. The weight became insistent, smothering. "No," He said again, more loudly, hating how his voice pitched and cracked.

Peter's mumblings were almost incoherent, too fast, too quiet beneath the sound of his blood roaring in his ears for him to understand what was being said. Squirming, trying to get his arm free for leverage, he shoved again, gaining a few inches, just enough to reach for the door handle behind him. A sweaty, sticky hand slipped behind his neck, trying to pull him closer and he swung, his hand open and connecting with Peter's face, something crunching beneath his palm.

"I fucking said no!"

Peter reared back, staring in shock. Blood slowly began to dribble down out of his nostrils. Brown eyes widened, a hand coming up to swipe across his lips. Dark eyes glanced down, saw the blood and widened, grew wild and furious.

He fumbled for the door handle again, fingers slick with sweat, scrabbling for purchase.

His head connected with the window, once, again, stars bursting red on black behind his eyelids.

The door flew open and he spilled out, dropping onto the concrete of the parking deck. He barely managed to get his legs clear of the door before it slammed shut again. He rolled away and tucked himself up against the SUV next to him as the car engine roared to life and Peter's car squealed, the high pitched whine of too much much too fast. Burning rubber scorched the air, lingering long after the car had disappeared from sight.

* * *

The dazed walk to a bus stop was mindless, looking for signs pointing him to the stop and sitting alone on the bench. The bus to the train, the train to another bus to the busstop, the walk to his apartment. Mindless, automatic. Apartment door to bathroom to shower, to clean the sweat and grime off of his skin, all the while avoiding looking at the name scrawled along the vulnerable, soft flesh on his upper arm, tucked inside like some sort of shameful secret.

The part of him that was a sheriff's son said he should go to the police, except nothing had happened, not really. He knew the police in New York well enough to know nothing would come of it. It was just a 'minor altercation' between soulmates. He knew enough about the system to know Peter's insistence would be seen as a new soulmate's enthusiasm, Stiles' rejection breaking one of the unwritten rules. He'd even struck out first, which wouldn't help his case, might even go a long way towards hurting his chances.

He'd never even gotten Peter's last name, like some sort of starry eyed idiot living a movie. His dad would kill him if he knew. God, his dad. Fuck. Something he didn't want to think about. Something he  _wasn't_  going to think about.

Stiles crawled into bed, not sure what he was feeling. The luxury of distance and the steady, bright lights of his apartment not offering any sense of clarity. Because no matter what anyone said, miserable pissants that wouldn't take no for an answer weren't soulmate material. He just-

He'd really been looking forward to it, like most people did. He'd built his life around the concept, everything from the house in Beacon Hills he wanted to buy, (a vague idea, mostly 'next to Scott' and little else) to the pets they'd adopt because kids were evil and- Fuck. An entire life. He'd planned an entire life around a person he'd never met, just  _assumed_  would be perfect for him because they'd had soulmate marks. 

He was still awake when the sun rose, hitting the other side of the building and slowly creeping past the window next to his bed. Sleep refused to come, his eyes wide, itching and dry when day traffic picked up and the sounds of the other tenants moving began to fill the space around him, threatening the safe cocoon of his bed.

Forcing himself to get up and make coffee, he decided against classes for the day and called his adviser to say he was sick. He avoided looking into the mirror, the throbbing of his face promising nothing he wanted to see.

His dad called to ask how the date went. Before he could really comprehend what he was saying, he lied, and said 'fine'. Scott called, and even though the word 'horrible' sat heavy,  _ready_ , on his tongue, he said 'great' instead.

Lydia sent a courtesy text demanding pictures when he could find a spare minute between the sex and pillow talk. Cringing, he deleted the text without an answer.

* * *

Life moved on. He avoided calls when he could, sprinkling the few he took with intermittent lies about the dates he wasn't going on, shifting the topic to school, never failing to bore someone by ranting about the same professor, over and over. The professor wasn't even all that bad, just the easiest target. It became a pattern, settled into a predictable rhythm. The calls came less and less.

It was tolerable. He could lie and say his soulmate got hit by a bus at some point. He just never did, trying to move the topic along to something, anything else for three minutes before he found an excuse to hang up.

* * *

"I thought you'd come home this summer," His dad tried, quiet disappointment coming through the line, worse than any sharply worded reprimand.

"Dad, I can't," Stiles mumbled into the phone, eyes cast down as if he was facing his dad and trying to avoid the disappointed stare his father had perfected over the years. "I've already applied for a bunch of internships. It'll help with school," He added weakly.

"Okay," His dad sighed, the sound echoing over the phone like a white flag. "Alright. What about if I come out there? I've got some vacation time. We could do the fourth of July out there this year."

"You- That's really expensive dad," He fumbled, thoughts beginning to crowd into one another.

"It's worth it, I haven't seen you since Christmas. Besides, I really want to meet Peter."

Nausea bubbled up, thin and acidic.  _Peter_.

"Dad, it's really busy here, I'm going to be working and I live in a studio, it's tiny-"

"Stiles." It was the long established one word warning, the end to any argument between him and his father.

"Okay," He breathed, clenching his eyes shut. The crowded thoughts were becoming long, run on sentences with no hope of parsing, too many too fast. "We'll figure it out. I need to go," He managed to get out through clenched teeth, his fingers numb around the cellphone.

"Okay, I'll talk to you later son. Love you."

"Love you too," He promised before disconnecting the call, jamming a finger too hard against the screen.

Too many thoughts, questions and trepidations played themselves out in a tangle of words that just wouldn't  _stop_ , his head swarming with the buzzing, incomprehensible mess of each disaster, every lie;  _Dad_  and  _Fuck_  and  _Peter_  ran on a hellish loop, drowning out the sounds of the city outside. There was no order to the chaos rapidly swelling and breaking past every attempt to shore it up. He was exhaling the words, trying to purge them out only to inhale them again, felt them tangle and knot, warp into each other until they became a relentlessly consuming dread. The more he tried to breathe them out, to avoid sucking them back in, the less air he got until he was dizzy and the words were still swarming in his skull, blending seamlessly into the unsteady cadence of his heart pounding too loudly in his ears.

Slumping down to the bed, he let the tension in his muscles cradle his bones, embraced the sensation of his ribs slowly caving in.

* * *

He opened his first beer and sat down at his laptop, staring dumbly at the search engine. He was supposed to be researching something, he had a paper to work on, but he could only think about his dad showing up, happy and demanding to meet Peter. God. Peter, who he hadn't seen since the parking garage, who he'd taken care to avoid even though he was sure Peter would never show his face anywhere near Morningside Heights ever again.

One beer turned into two, his research turning to soulmates. Like a masochist he read, trying to figure out some way to- To something, the word beyond him, just a panicked, desperate need driving him. The websites all seemed to say the same thing over and over, peppered with medical and religious dogma to make unexplained predestination more palatable.

Forever. Destiny. Completion.

What a fucking joke, all of it.

Three beers in and he had a thought. It was- Shit, contrived, for one. Absurd in the extreme. Blasphemous, definitely. But plausible because it was so preposterous. No one would ever do it, not when the marks were  _sacred_. No one would expect it  _because_  it was so outrageous, mocking the sanctity of the idea. His reticence concerning Peter would even work in his favor, if he played it right.

Craigslist had a section dedicated entirely to people seeking their soulmates, with nothing but their names and a picture of their marks posted. He ignored that section and looked at the boards created for people looking for 'right now', for 'casual'. Even in his desperation, he couldn't make himself go near the board created for widowed soulmates.

He typed, fingers banging on the keys, too hard, the clicks and taps, the typos he had to go back and correct hinting at the desperation he felt.

* * *

The slew of messages that began filling his inbox almost immediately were-

Christ, people could be disgusting. The offers and demands for sex were offputting, but he'd expected those. What he hadn't expected were the emails telling him how pathetic he was, or how he was disrespecting the  _sacred_ _bond_ , or that he needed to see a therapist, because attempting to replace a soulmate with someone of the same name indicated severe psychological problems.

It took a concentrated effort of will to just delete them and close out his inbox before he decided chucking his laptop across the room was a good idea.

Ignoring the sinking feeling of dread, the pervasive sense of shame that seemed to accompany him wherever he went, he crawled into his bed and tried to sleep.

* * *

Going through the messages the next morning wasn't any more palatable, but he was groggy enough that the insults and sexual demands barely registered. He figured if he waited until he was finished to finally get his morning fix, he'd be okay. Offers of sex, a few people demanding outrageous amounts of money, more anonymous messages trying to explain how bad of a person he was in varying tones with vary levels of grammar applied. There were a few messages from people sounding genuinely concerned, and he tried not to imagine them talking in his dad's voice.

**My name is Peter, and I have no soulmate. I'm intrigued.  I wouldn't require payment, but before I consider anything, I'd like to know why you're willing to lie to your family about such an important subject.**

He stared at the screen. It really sounded too good to be true.

It could be bullshit, someone digging for information, or someone wanting to tell him exactly how wrong he was, maybe try to put him 'back on the path' or whatever. It was disheartening to realize literally nothing would surprise him after some of the things he'd read.

**How do I know this isn't bullshit?**

He sent it off and immediately regretted it. Maybe he should have had that coffee after all.

Then again, it was entirely possible he was right, and it was another asshole readying to unload on him, either out of disgust or some misguided need to show him the error of his ways.

The rest of the emails read in a predictable pattern, and he deleted all of them. 'Peter' didn't respond.

He picked up a bottle of whiskey on his way home from class.

* * *

The picture of the photo id had several pertinent areas completely blacked out, but the name was Peter, the last name censored. The photo was blacked out too, but the birth date hadn't been.

Fifteen years older than him. Well. It wouldn't be the first time there had been a mated pair with an age gap. It might even work in his favor. The age disparity would be something he would have had to get used to, might give him an excuse for being so closemouthed about Peter in the first place. It definitely wasn't what his dad would be expecting.

Peter still wanted to know why he was even considering the pretense.

He began typing, then erased it, then typed again. Erased again.

Two deep glasses of whiskey later he figured he'd typed the same sparing explanation several times and might as well send it. The worst Peter could do was not reply.

* * *

**I'm interested. When would you like to meet?**

It occurred to him that he was about to do something incredibly stupid, stupid enough that it rivaled everything he'd done to help Scott and Allison back in high school. Considering how well that had turned out for him, it gave him a moment's pause. If this blew up in his face, the consequences would be worse than getting arrested. 

The plan though. It was viable. It could  _work_. His dad would only be in town for a little over a week. Plenty of people managed to keep sham relationships going for  _years_ , pretending to care about one another while imagining more and more creative ways to maim each other. His wouldn't be any different. If anything, it would lack the hostility. Hopefully.

**Janey's Coffee in SoHa this Wednesday? Six?**

Forty minutes later a simple 'I'll wear a blue shirt and leave my sunglasses on the table. See you then.' was in the reply email, and nothing more.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Outward perspective of flashbacks, Unintentional harm/bruising

The ambient noise of students and TAs grabbing coffee, studying, texting or talking on their phones filled the small coffee shop, full for the substitute dinner hour, where no one ate anything more than a cookie or a muffin and drank too much coffee. The sense of anonymity made it easy to walk in and quietly step into the line. He was no one else, no one special or different, certainly not someone with his plan stamped on his forehead for the whole world to see.

He scanned the tables, saw three blue shirts, but only one person wearing one sitting alone, sunglasses folded on the table in front of him as he stared out the window, people watching. Maybe trying to find Stiles in the crowd.

Taking a few moments to acclimate to the fact that Peter was actually there, that it hadn't been some sort of joke, he didn't betray any sense of recognition, ordered his coffee and waited patiently at the bar until it was ready, taking stock of Peter from the corner of his eye the entire time.

Peter was- Actually not bad looking, even for an older man. He definitely didn't look like he'd crossed forty, at any rate, despite the threads of gray scattered through his hair. The stubble didn't hurt, giving the impression it was intentional instead of looking unkempt. He was singularly out of place in the college coffee shop. Stiles had the impression he'd been wearing a suit, but discarded his jacket and tie somewhere along the way and unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt, long sleeves rolled up, each cuff neat, matching widths. It was street chic relaxed and rumpled, looking too deliberate to be sloppy.

It made Stiles more nervous than he already was. Why would anyone even agree to go along with something society considered blasphemous? And why would someone that looked like Peter agree? Surely he could be doing better things, involving himself with better people, than Stiles and his fucked up solution to a problem he'd brought on himself.

He could leave, no harm no foul. Peter had no idea what he looked like or what his real name was.

The thought of facing his dad's questions filled him with a skittering, clawing sense of panic, the explanations that would have to follow beginning to crowd his head again. One foot in front of the other, he reminded himself. It was that easy.

It couldn't be any harder than anything that had already happened.

"Peter?" He asked, forcing himself to repress the instinctive shudder at the name.

"Stiles," Peter said, giving him a quick, assessing once over.

"Uh, yeah."

"Well, are you going to sit down?" Peter asked, leaning back against the seat. Stiles thought he looked too relaxed, too amused for the meeting. Maybe it had been a joke. Or maybe he was being punked, and a camera was watching, waiting to plaster his face all over youtube.

His life could actually get so much worse.

"Having second thoughts?"

"No," He lied, sitting down. Peter's legs were stretched out beneath the table, spread wide and taking up the meager space. Stiles kept his legs tight together, the bench seat cutting into the backs of his knees.

"So," Peter began. "I suppose you should tell me about yourself."

He gaped stupidly, struggling for a response. "That's it?"

"What were you expecting?" Peter asked, head canting to the side. "You explained why you're doing this. I agreed. Now it's just a matter of getting to know one another and getting our stories straight. You might have time on your side, but I assume the more familiar we are with each other, the less chance of giving the game away."

"Can't I just write it in an email?" He tried, turning his mug until the handle lined up with the edge of the table.

"I'd prefer not."

"I'd really would though," He said, staring down into the blackness of the coffee.

"You asked for my help, Stiles. I can leave."

His eyes snapped up to meet Peter's. They were blue, bright and vivid, as different from  _that_  Peter's eyes as they could be.

"Yeah. Sorry, this is just weird, I guess."

"I can start," Peter offered magnanimously, and Stiles covered his grimace of distaste by taking a sip of coffee. "I'm Peter Hale, forty three years old, and I'm a financial adviser at Jessup's."

That was it, and Stiles took his cue. "Stiles Stilinski, twenty eight, grad student at Columbia."

Peter had the grace to look impressed, at least, unless he was making fun of him. Stiles hated that he couldn't tell whether or not he was being mocked. "What's your field of study?

"Neuroscience, neuropsychology, actually. What kind of financial advising?" Because he knew shit about finances in general, high school economics having left him with a pathological aversion to the subject.

"Mostly private investment fundraising," Peter told him, and Stiles supposed that meant something. "Why neuropsychology?"

"I just chose it," Stiles lied, glancing outside at a group of students arguing something loudly enough it came through the glass as they walked by.

Peter made an indecipherable sound, not quite impatience, but not- Not a  _mild_  sound either. Disapproval, maybe, a sound that made Stiles want to withdraw and lash out at the same time, body caught between the two impulses. "I have to know you. Your career goals seem like a decent place to start. Considering Columbia's not indiscriminate, it suggests you've worked hard to get where you are."

Except talking to a virtual stranger about it felt tantamount to ritual suicide. All he had to do was gut himself and wait for the killing blow. "My mom had frontotemporal dementia. Crazy," He clarified, not quite able to curb his sarcasm as he tapped a finger to his temple. "I'm focusing on neurodegenerative disorders, for obvious reasons."

Peter was quiet for a moment, making no attempt to disguise his assessing gaze. Stiles felt broken open a little, a crack exposed for Peter to examine at will.

"It's difficult to imagine you in scrubs," He finally said. "Or a labcoat."

"People think I look too young," Stiles sighed, grateful to get away from that particular subject. "Now that you've gone poking in the family closet and found all the skeletons-"

"I highly doubt that was all of them."

"What about you? Why were you cruising cragislist ads? You seem like more the-" Stiles picked up his mug, needing a moment to figure out what to say. "Upscale type. Private agencies, that sort of thing."

"Maybe I was looking for a cheap rentboy."

Stiles choked and sputtered on his coffee and coughed into his hand, glaring at Peter, who was grinning back.

"Seriously. My dad's in law enforcement. A sheriff, which means he's pretty much free to abuse his background check privileges. If there's a soulmate in your past he'll probably find out." Or soliciting charges for that matter. That would do wonders for getting Peter out of his life and never mentioned again. It would also make his dad's visit one of the more uncomfortable events he'd ever experienced, including the time he'd been booked.

"I've never had a soulmate. Never married. No children that I'm aware of."

Aware of. Stiles chose discretion as the better part of valor and settled for a nod. "Any family?"

"A niece and a nephew. I manage their investments but otherwise we sometimes exchange polite calls at Christmas, when I'm available."

"Oh. That's-" Utterly depressing. Wow. "Okay. At least I don't have to pretend to know people, I guess."

"Such an optimist."

The abrupt, sarcastic noise escaped without his permission and settled between them, an unwelcome guest at their meeting. Peter didn't seem to mind, his eyes crinkling at the corners again, but his mouth a lazily bowed line and nothing more. "Not really, no."

Peter hummed thoughtfully, finger running along the edge of the table. "Given what little you told me, I can understand why you're not interested in-" He gestured with his hand, the meaning implicit. "I don't understand why you're doing this instead of telling your father the truth. You can't keep lying forever."

He thought carefully about his answer, trying to find some way to explain the absurdity, why it would work, why he  _needed_  it to work. "My family really believes in it. Like, my dad and my mom were the love story to end all love stories. Scott found his and hasn't looked back. But Melissa's left her, so I figured," Stiles turned the mug on the table, felt the heat pricking his fingertips as the handle moved, rotating back into it's original position, lined up at the edge.  _Neat_ , his mind supplied.  _Compulsive_ , his psych professor's voice whispered back. "I'd say that's what happened. It looks like I gave it a good effort but it didn't work. This way he won't push the whole 'your soulmate is out there' spiel like he did when my first girlfriend broke up with me."

"Which leaves you free to find someone you actually care about instead of a predestined fluke."

Fluke. He latched onto that word, pulled it in and  _savored_  it, relieved to hear someone make light of the mark. "Yeah."

"What  _is_  your name? Stiles can't be it."

"Przemysław."

Peter's jaw slackened in incomprehension or pity, a look Stiles was used to any time someone heard, or worse, tried to say, his name. "Was that a sneeze?"

" _That's_  why I prefer Stiles."

"That's quite a name to go through life with. Very unique," Peter observed diplomatically, punctuating the statement with a sip of coffee that failed to completely hide how his eyes crinkled at the corners, the tell tale hints of a smile. He sobered again, the transformation instant and complete. "Have you considered that this other Peter might try to find you again?"

"He hasn't shown up since," Stiles dismissed, ignoring the swooping sensation of his stomach bottoming out. "I'm pretty sure he got the message when I broke his nose."

"That would discourage most." Peter let it go, and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief, loosening the death grip he had on his mug

"Why are you doing this? You don't want money, and you're not getting sex."

"I'm bored," Peter declared bluntly. "I've never been someone's soulmate. Consider it a new experience for me."

A dozen questions popped up, not one of them something he actually needed to know, and most of them personal, the kind that people didn't ask unless they really were soulmates. Peter had showed him a degree of consideration, and Stiles doubted he'd appreciate discretion being repaid with prying.

"Tell me about your family," Peter demanded abruptly. "You said your father's coming. I only know that he's a sheriff and he chose the worst holiday short of Christmas to visit New York."

"I didn't  _ask_  him to pick the Fourth of July." He hadn't asked at all.

"Is he a good man? Or one of those corrupt officers the news loves to sensationalize?"

"He's a good man," Stiles huffed, rolling his eyes. He started talking, feeling like he was giving a presentation at first, stilted chattering straight off of a powerpoint. Highlights with little explanations, skirting the topic of his mother, how her illness and death had sent his father into a tailspin of grief that both of them had barely survived. Then Peter asked what it was like being a sheriff's son, if he'd been the ideal child or if he'd beena pain in his father's ass.

Something in his chest relaxed as he recounted a prank that had shut down his high school for two days, something he'd gotten away with until he'd gotten home and his dad had known it was him, some parental sixth sense zeroing in on well concealed guilt or triumph. Peter laughed, a startling, rich sound that filled the coffee shop and drew the stares of people around them. He laughed even harder when Stiles admitted his dad's punishment, filing at the station every day after school, had backfired when he'd started getting lockpicking and hotwiring tips from the local criminal element.

It was simpler, after that, almost easy to talk about himself and the spastic teenager he'd been, how he'd locked down in his junior year and gotten serious about getting into a good college. Peter listened, asked questions and made the right sounds at the right times. He admitted he'd been the type of person that was physically incapable of having a conversation without offending someone, and it still cropped up from time to time. Peter's smirk and answering 'me too' was actually encouraging, especially when Peter mentioned that one of his duties at the firm, the one he enjoyed most, was steering clients away from the firm.

Apparently he could be a 'diplomatic prick' when called upon. Stiles was curious about how that worked. Peter obliged, only too happy to tell him about his job as a professional asshole. He gave the impression of being good at his job, all aspects, very much in control of himself and his clients while not caring so much that he felt the need to brag about it. It was a job, an amusing way to use his skills to make money.

It didn't give Stiles any real sense of Peter outside of being a clever asshole, which Peter had admitted to with a carelessness that made Stiles wonder if he cared what people thought about him at all.

When he checked his phone, thinking about a refill on his coffee, he almost swallowed his tongue. "Shit, I lost track of time. I need to get going, or I'm going to be late for my study group." Really goddamn late. Kiki would bust his chops if he didn't grab doughnuts this time either. Or at least a few bags of chips.

Peter plucked the phone from his hand and quickly tapped at the screen. A quiet ringing echoed below the table and Peter handed the phone back to him with a smile. "I'll talk to you later, Stiles."

"Yeah," He said, nodding. "Thanks."

"My pleasure."

* * *

Texts came in and continued through the next several days, surprising him at odd moments. There were the expected questions; favorite this and that, least favorites, birthday and food allergies. Peter managed to surprise him though, interspersing those with questions about childhood accidents, what he'd wanted to grow up to be before he'd actually grown up, what had happened to show him what growing up really was.

He tried to match the questions for depth, about how he'd become a financial adviser, was he a people watcher on the train or when he ate out, did he prefer to savor food or was it a general necessity, sustenance and little more? The answers weren't as long as Stiles made his, and for all the information he received, he still felt like he didn't know much of anything about Peter.

* * *

That evening while he was working on a paper he got a text asking him what his favorite memory was. It was easier, almost like emailing, to be honest via texts.

**My mom teaching me to swing dance. You?**

**Sailing the Ionian.**

That was- Disappointingly banal. He'd figured Peter for something more imaginative.

**A cruise?**

**Singlehanded sailing.**

He looked up the term, frowning until he read the quick definition on wikipedia, beginning to feel slightly more impressed. He looked up a map because he had no clue where the Ionian even was besides the vague idea of 'Europe'.

The Ionian  _Sea_. Huh. He clicked over to google pictures and gaped, scrolling down through the wall of photos before picking up his phone and tapping out another quick message.

**You lucky bastard. That looks amazing.**

The next text was an image. He opened it and saw what looked like the deck of a sailboat and nothing but shades of blue beyond it, blue sky and blue water, robins egg and turquoise mirroring one another. It wasn't a great picture, technically speaking. It was just a snapshot from a cellphone; but Stiles liked it, could see why Peter had wanted to try capturing motion in a single frame,

**Are you part of a yacht club or something?**

**Yes. But I don't participate any regattas or races.**

**You're not competitive?**

His phone rang and he answered it, turning it to speakerphone and setting it on his pillow while he looked back at his computer screen. "Hello."

"Hello, Stiles. To answer your question, I'm extremely competitive, just not when it comes to sailing."

It was an invitation to ask him what he  _was_  competitive about, but Stiles figured that would come later, when he could actually give the topic his full attention. "What's it like?"

"Sailing?"

"No, yacht club dinner etiquette," He snorted, shaking his head. "Yes, sailing."

His sarcasm went without comment, Peter's bemused puzzlement echoing through the phone. "You've never been on a boat?"

"I've been on ferries and I kayaked a little back in California, that's about it. Is there not a difference? Because it seems like there would be."

Peter chuckled over the line, a heady, thrumming sound. "Do you know anything about sailing?"

"Nope. Feel free to school me though. I'm working on a paper but I can multitask."

"What's the paper on?"

"Neuronal architecture and de novo mutations related to schizophrenia. I can do it in my sleep," He lied. Doctor Saenger, unimaginatively nicknamed The Kaiser, was a hardass. The paper had to be flawless or she'd return it in literal shreds, bleeding red ink. "Feel free to talk away."

Peter's passion for the subject made itself known in the way he spoke, voice shifting into a steady cadence as he told Stiles about spending two months drifting along the coast of Italy. Far from sounding like some pretentious blowhard using a boat to illustrate his personal wealth, Peter made the experience sounded meditative, peaceful. Being alone didn't seem to bother him at all, the idea of being alone on a boat for weeks on end a retreat from-

Something, Stiles supposed, though he wasn't sure how to ask, didn't really want to, if he was being honest with himself. Despite being a virtual stranger, Peter's understated enthusiasm was relaxing, made it easier to focus on his paper instead of less. Disrupting that by asking felt counterintuitive. Besides, Peter sounded fondly nostalgic, and Stiles liked it. More than anyone he could appreciate the feeling that came with being allowed to speak freely on something he was passionate about.

He was in the middle of a sentence when Peter said something, his tone making it sound like a question.

"What?" He asked, shaking his head to try and clear the confusing trainwreck his thoughts had suddenly become.

"Would you like to go out sometime? It's the perfect time of year for it."

Just like that Peter was a stranger again. Offering to take him out on a boat, probably alone. Alone. He wasn't an idiot anymore, tried to give himself more credit than that. At least he knew Peter's last name this time around. Still. Alone on a boat.

"Maybe," He hedged, finger tapping out a nervous beat on the space bar.

Peter made a quiet sound, another noise Stiles wasn't sure how to decipher. "Alright."

He ended the call soon after that, claiming he needed to focus on a model. Even without the excuse of a distraction, he didn't add anything to the paper before going to bed.

* * *

Despite the awkward end to the conversation the night before, there was another text the next day, asking him about sports. The resulting 'lacrosse, really?' launched a full scale debate about sports, somehow turning into an actual call and a lengthy exposition on the Mets while Peter rejected the 'supposed merits' of baseball as a whole. Stiles zealously defended it, even when Peter seemed more than ready to drop the matter with a politic 'agree to disagree' statement.

He didn't ask Peter why he sailed, why he loved it so much, what he was moving towards or leaving behind.

* * *

Stiles hiked up his backpack and checked his phone again.

"Did you just come from class?" Peter asked, coming up behind him. His heart jumped into his throat and he swallowed the bleating sound that threatened to come out. He turned and offered what he hoped was a casual smile to hide the split second of terror that was taking it's sweet time fading. God  _damn_  adrenaline.

"Library. You look different," He noted, glancing at Peter in jeans and a soft white v-neck, sunglasses hanging from the collar. He looked more like someone that would sail instead of someone that would buy a boat and hire someone else to sail it for him.

"I was off today, no suit," Peter informed him with a wry smile. "I don't live in them, unlike some of my colleagues."

"I guess I've become immune to the sight of people in suits since I came here, so seeing one of the suits in regular clothes is weird," Stiles offered, falling to step beside Peter. "It wasn't that bad in California, but once I got here," He shrugged and smiled. "People in suits everywhere."

"It is eerie, isn't it?" Peter chuckled. "Although it's always interesting to see people in suits sitting next to rumpled college students on the train. Or walking next to them."

"Not all of us are rumpled," Stiles denied, relaxing. "We're just-"

"Obsessive messes that have the luxury of focusing on school instead of dressing like adults."

"I resent that," He retorted, tension bleeding out of his spine. "Lydia trashed most of my clothes back in college and made me buy, and I quote, 'adult clothing'."

"Is that shirt something that survived her purge?" Peter asked, glancing at the yellow, brown and purple plaid.

"Nope, Scott gave it to me for my birthday last year."

"Scott's the best friend in veterinary school?"

"Yeah."

"He has horrendous taste."

"He has no taste," Stiles laughed. "Lydia and Danny are still our fashion consultants. Thank god for skype."

He hadn't asked Lydia about what to wear since February. He'd barely spoken to Lydia since then, and never over skype. The thought sobered him, killing the laughter in his throat.

Fingers slipped over his palm and slotted between his, making him jump and yank his hand away, the startled yelp lingering between them. Peter returned his quiet demand for an explanation with a roll of his eyes.

"Holding hands is a common expression of affection, Stiles. Usually a thoughtless one."

"Oh," He muttered, face burning hot with mortification, ears buzzing. "Yeah, sorry."

Feeling too awkward, he offered his hand like a child in grade school, hand hanging dumbly in the air for a moment before Peter took it. Their easy synchronicity was lost when they began walking again, the hand in his warm and dry, making the sweat misting his palm that much more mortifying. He tried to measure his steps to match Peter's again, which should have been easy because they were almost the same height, but he kept moving too quickly, too slowly, his strides too long or coming up short.

Peter directed them to a bench and grabbed his shoulders, gently pushing him to sit down. Instead of sitting next to him, he stayed standing, a too close two inches away from him when he bent at the knees so their eyes were level.

"I know it's strange, but you'll probably raise some very uncomfortable questions if you flinch when I touch you," Peter informed him, not unkindly.

"It's weird," He tried, lacking any real conviction.

"That's not a first, though the tone is," Peter tutted, taking both of his hands in his, palms up. "Is this alright?"

No, it wasn't. He wanted to yank his hands away and stuff them in his pockets. Instead, he nodded tightly, staring at Peter's hands moving up slowly, thumbs sliding back and forth. "People have said it's weird?"

"Not touch, necessarily, but other things."

"Other-" He flushed, realizing what Peter was implying. "Oh. Perv. Gotcha."

"I prefer the term adventurous," Peter told him, running his hands up and down his arms slowly. "I will never touch you in a way you don't agree to beforehand, and if you tell me to stop, I will."

"That sounds a lot like something a stranger offering me free candy would say."

"I'm not above bribery. Is candy all it takes?"

"You're such a creep," Stiles chuffed, watching Peter's fingers slide over the inside of his elbows and back down. Peter's fingers were rough with calluses, his palms equally so. Stiles wondered if it had been sailing that had given him the calluses. People didn't get them sitting behind a desk all day.

"Definitely not the first time I've heard that."

"Should I be worried my dad's going to find something incriminating when he does the inevitable background check?" He gulped as Peter coaxed his fingers into uncurling again.

"Oh, any number of offenses," Peter confided, never stopping his ministrations. "Stealing candy from babies, snatching old women's purses, public indecency-"

"See that one I might believe."

"You're a poor judge of character," Peter said, thumbs circling the pulse points in his wrists lightly before moving back down to his palms. It was intimacy that felt strangely sexless, the touch merely that, touch. Fingers ghosted over his, tickling and making the digits spasm. "It was purse snatching."

"Of course it was."

"And you? Any offenses one might find if they look into your background?"

"Are you going to?"

"I suppose that depends on whether or not I believe your answer. I should warn you, I have a talent for spotting lies," Peter told him, moving to sit next to him and settling in, their knees touching. Stiles waited for the inevitable arm around his shoulder, but Peter's other arm stretched across the back of the bench, away from him.

For several minutes he debated with himself about whether or not he should tell the truth. It certainly wouldn't look good, but then, his dad would probably expect Peter to know. There was the added insult of Peter looking him up somehow, which would lead to Peter finding out more than he should. Better to give it some context, at least. "I got arrested when I was seventeen," He finally said, looking up at the tree branches hanging over them, providing shade. "The charges were dropped, but I still have a record."

"Can I ask what for?"

"It's really stupid," He admitted, pinching the bridge of his nose. Just thinking about it made his head hurt a little, an embarrassed flushing creeping up the back of his neck.

"I think I should be the judge of that."

"My friend Scott, he was in love with this girl. Her family are part of some extremist cult or something, one that doesn't believe in the marks at all. They had hers covered the same day it appeared, she was only five or six when it happened," He bit out, thinking about the patchy, dark splotch on Allison's ribcage that had made her hesitant to wear a bikini or change in the girl's locker room. "Scott's dad walked out on him and his mom when he was a kid, so he didn't really believe in marks or anything. It worked for them. They were good together, said it would be forever, the normal teenage spiel. Even though a lot of people gave them shit for it, they were really happy."

"How does a happy teenage couple end in your arrest?"

"Her soulmate showed up," He sighed, closing his eyes and thinking about that first moment Allison had sat down with  _him_  of all people and told him about the letter Isaac had slipped into her locker. "He was convinced it was her, even though her name's common. She couldn't even remember her mark anymore, just that it was purple or blue, maybe. But he was adamant. It caused a lot of problems." Understatement, his junior year had been a living hell, Scott and Isaac's confrontations devolving into actual fistfights on two very memorable occasions; Allison torn between loving Scott and the inevitable draw of her potential soulmate. Even he and Lydia had nearly had breakdowns, resorting to raiding her parents wine collection more than once and settling into a friendship born of shared lassitude.

"Danny and I broke into her parent's house while they were out, so I could find her medical records. They usually have it somewhere, you know? She asked me to," He added defensively, the sardonic twist to Peter's lips feeling like a rebuke. "But they're pretty well off, and the safe was one of those crazy things made for holding the crown jewels. Danny couldn't hack it even after I got past the biometrics and locks. Long story short, we got caught. My dad's deputies had to bring us in."

He hoped the shame he  _still_  felt went without saying.

"That's quite a story."

"I was booked, but her parents dropped the charges. Scott didn't even know she'd asked until he went berserk on us and she told him the truth. It's what caused them to finally break it off. He didn't speak to me for a couple of months after that." A couple of months involving an arraignment where the Argents dropped all the charges, giving him the scare of his goddamn life, and his dad's near constant silence. Danny and Lydia had been the only reason he hadn't been pinwheeling from panic attack to panic attack.

"What happened to your friends?"

"Scott's soulmate Kira transferred in. He gave the mark a try, fell deeply in love and everyone was happy." It had been more complicated than that, the sullen glares and quiet hostility lingering into senior year before Scott had stopped avoiding Kira. Stiles still thanked whatever nameless force existed that Kira had been sympathetic to Scott's situation and given him space and time, then proven to be the best possible match for him.

"Did all of your friends meet their soulmates in high school?" Peter asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Nah, Danny didn't meet his until last year, Jackson found his in  _England_. Lydia's- She kind of met him in high school," He chuffed, rolling his eyes at the memory.

"Kind of?"

"The deputy that arrested me. She came to the station to talk to my dad about the situation, and bam! Deputy Jordan Parrish, mated to a sixteen year old girl. She went off on him, telling him she didn't give a damn if he was her soulmate, that he better not have been too rough on me and Danny or she'd have him brought up on charges. It was kind of, no it was  _absolutely_  hilarious," He sniggered, shoulders bouncing as he tried to control himself. Even in the middle of the worst day of his short life, he and Danny had been muffling their laughter. "I could hear her from the holding cells. According to my dad, Jordan told her to come back when she was eighteen and hid in the evidence room until she left after she tried to go off on him  _again_."

"Did she?"

"She waited until she was twenty four just to prove a point," He chuckled, shaking his head. "She wouldn't even go near the station until then, and no one would pull her over except my dad. We tried dating for awhile, actually. I used to have a huge crush on her, but I knew she wasn't-"

"She was waiting for him," Peter guessed in a curiously flat voice.

"Or trying to get back at him, even if she didn't realize it," He admitted quietly, flushing at the admission despite years of distance and forgiveness. That suspicion had nearly destroyed their friendship before it had even gotten off the ground. "It wouldn't have been hard for him to hear that his soulmate was dating his boss' son, you know? She said that wasn't it, but it didn't last long."

"You're still friends."

"Yeah. She's a friend worth having," He said quietly, feeling her absence, reminded that he'd effectively cut her off and unsure of how to approach her again, especially with a lie. Even though Scott was his brother in everything but name, Lydia was probably the person that knew him, understood him the best. Telling her a lie felt almost as bad as telling his father. Unless it became necessary, he wasn't going to do it. He could figure the rest out after his dad left New York.

"Your high school experience sounds much more entertaining than mine."

"Can you even remember yours?" He teased lightly, watching Peter stand with a groan that turned into a throaty rumble as he stretched, arms going up and out, back arching before relaxing. It was an impressive display of physique, if nothing else.

"I'm not that old, Stiles. I can remember my youth fairly well, what's worth remembering."

Stiles wondered if the display had been intentional, a way for Peter to silently point out he was in good shape despite his age. Better than most thirty somethings Stiles had met anyway.

"Is there anything worth remembering?" He asked, getting to his feet, immediately shoving his hands into his pockets.

"I was a smug, insufferable little shit that liked to stir up trouble. But I never got caught," He added, a mischievous smirk lighting up his features. Stiles thought it was unfair that someone in their forties could pull that sort of smile off without looking deranged. Any time he tried, people just told him he looked like he needed to take medication.

"What kind of trouble?"

"The usual," Peter replied with airy bravado, pulling his sunglasses free and putting them on.

"The less you say the more paranoid I get."

"Like I said, I never got caught, so there's nothing to worry about. How does Indian sound for lunch?"

"Oh come on, give me something," Stiles prodded, gently elbowing Peter. "I fessed up to a literal arrest. Surely yours can't be that bad."

Peter's bland look stopped him in his tracks, the sunglasses only adding to the effect.

"It's not, is it?"

Peter continued walking.

"Oh my god, you didn't kill someone did you? Or rob a bank?" He demanded, catching up to Peter. "Please tell me you're not secretly a hitman and Jessup's is like, a front for the mob. Is that what the boat's for? You dump the bodies out in international waters?"

"I've lived in New York for twenty years and I've never heard anyone speak that fast. I'm impressed."

" _Asshole_ ," He muttered, elbowing Peter. "Seriously though, what's one of the more illegal things you've done?"

"Who says I've done anything illegal? Not everyone spent their youth committing felonies," Peter taunted.

"Everyone's done something illegal. My dad's done illegal stuff, and he's a sheriff. But, if you're scared I'll narc," He countered sarcastically, his shoulders following his eyeroll so Peter could see it. "How about immoral. That work?"

"There was a point in college where everyone seemed to be drinking too much or doing drugs, which never interested me," Peter said after a moment's thought. "Watching other people under the influence was incredibly amusing, though. They never shut up, and they never realized exactly how much they'd divulged until they were sober again."

"Did you blackmail someone or something?"

"They probably think so, but I never tried to cash in on what I knew," Peter informed him, smirking. "If you're worried about me doing something like that, don't. It's not really my style."

"You enjoy watching people squirm, don't you?" Stiles deduced immediately, amused despite himself. He wasn't sure if it was any better or worse than actual blackmail, but it was sort of hilarious. If he'd had the self control, he probably would have tried it, or something like it.

"No one's ever guessed that."

"But I'm right, aren't I?" He pressed.

"You are."

"You  _are_  an asshole."

"But not as much as I could be," Peter pointed out.

Stiles laughed all the way to the subway, hugging his middle and drawing stares.

* * *

"Oh god."

Not only had his dad booked his flight, but apparently his enthusiasm had been catching. Scott was coming, and he was bringing Kira with him. Melissa was joining in because _the Fourth of July in New York_! Why not? Stiles tried to swallow the hysterical laugh that threatened to bubble up and failed.

It wasn't like there was anyone to see him anyway.

* * *

**Scott, Kira and Melissa are coming too.**

He waited at his table, glancing from his computer screen to his phone every few minutes, knee bouncing anxiously under the table.

**That sounds fun.**

Was that sarcasm? That was the problem with texting. Tonality. He tried to imagine how Peter would say it. It didn't sound sarcastic. If anything, he could imagine Peter delighting in the extra hurdles, like some sort of personal challenge.

**You're out of your mind.**

**Stop worrying. We can go out to dinner tonight and discuss it.**

**Can't. Dead week. Finals. Studying. Later?**

**Alright. Let me know.**

* * *

The sound of his phone trilling shattered his concentration, wrenching his gaze away from his notes to the counter where the phone sat, charging. Still trilling. It cycled through and he looked back to the computer screen. The trilling started again a second later. Stomping over to the counter, he saw Peter's name blinking on the screen.

"Hi," He greeted, wondering if he sounded pissed off. His teeth were clenched together. He probably sounded pissed off.

A moment passed. "Hello," Peter greeted cautiously.

Definitely pissed off. He looked up at the ceiling and tried to remember what polite sounded like. "What's up?" Cringing, he realized he had gone from pissed off to awkward teenager. Maybe he should just lie and say he had strep throat and text instead.

"I'm still in the city. We should go to dinner," Peter suggested.

"It's dead week."

"So you've told me."

"Do you not remember finals?"

"I'm not that old," Peter reminded him in a flat voice. Stiles imagined Peter scowling and wondered why it felt like a victory. "I remember a dire need for coffee and food. Have you eaten?"

"I live above a wings bar." Granted it was several stories, and the poptarts in his cabinet were more readily accessible. Peter probably wouldn't consider a box of poptarts real dinner. But what Peter didn't know he couldn't provide sarcastic commentary on.

"That's not an answer."

"I can eat dinner when I'm done with reviewing my notes."

"Rough estimate."

"What?" He asked, foot beginning to tap against the linoleum. He wondered if Peter could hear it. It didn't stop him. If anything he began to tap more loudly, body bouncing in time with the motion.

"A ballpark estimate of what time you'll be done."

"I dunno, seven, eight maybe?"

"Stiles," Peter sighed, turning his name into a condescending rebuke. Or what definitely felt like one.

" _What_?" He snarled into the phone.

"It's after eight."

He glanced at his computer and grimaced. "Fuck."

"I've had a long day here. I can meet you, we can have dinner."

"I don't have the time for twenty questions. I need to review my notes."

"Just dinner. Consider it a much needed breather so you don't fry  _your_  brain in the process of looking at someone else's. Half an hour, hour tops. I'll even come to you. Sound good?"

Food sounded good, memorizing his notes so he didn't crash and burn on Spaegler's final sounded better. "I really need to get this done, I'm sorry."

Peter's sigh echoed across the line, and he felt a momentary flash of guilt before the customary finals panic swamped it. "Alright."

The call ended abruptly, his goodbye lingering into the silence, as though unheard and ignored.

* * *

The buzzer on the intercom sounded off, obliterating his concentration with a high pitched whine. Groaning, he got to his feet and felt his back pop before he walked over, another buzz echoing just as he got to the intercom. He cursed the fifth floor couple that routinely locked themselves out.

"Hello?" He asked, idly imagining Jessie Pink having a heatstroke.

"Hello Stiles."

"Peter?" He demanded, reeling back and glaring at the panel since Peter was  _downstairs_. They needed to upgrade to the visual comms. Desperately.

"Stiles, you should let me in."

A frisson of horror sparked, flared into rage. "How do you know where I live?"

"How many Przemysław Stilinskis are there in New York? It wasn't difficult to find you, and since you're being obstinate, I brought food to you."

It was unfair that Peter had heard his name once and could pronounce it when it had taken Stiles the better part of ten years and his dad still had trouble wrapping his mouth around it. "You know how creepy this is?"

"I've got coffee.  _Real_  coffee."

"Still creepy and giving off free candy vibes."

"Stiles." That same condescending rebuke.

"Fine," He snapped waspishly, entering the code and letting Peter into the building.

Peter had several flights of stairs to walk up, which gave Stiles a few minutes to fume and panic, picking up dirty clothes and tossing them into the hamper and then trying to put the kitchenette in some semblance of order.

He should dig out the mace his dad had given him. Jesus fucking Christ. His apartment. Peter had looked up his address.

A light knocking came at the door and he strode over to it, yanking it open and blocking the entrance.

Peter held a large coffee out in offering. Stiles took it and stepped to the side, utterly apathetic to how childish he might be being by remaining silent and glaring peevishly.

"This isn't what I expected," Peter told him, looking around the small space, as if trying to figure out where to sit. There was only the bed and the small table with it's two chairs, the table and chair he hadn't been using stacked with textbooks.

"It's a studio," He muttered defensively, walking over to the small dining table and stacking his books and notes; papers crinkling and snapping, crunching in his hands. "I was in Nussbaum and this was better." At least the lights didn't periodically flicker or go out and he didn't have to worry about his suitemates never cleaning the bathroom.

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with it," Peter said, moving to help him. He snatched the books up and walked across the room, dropping them on the nightstand with a thud. "If you want me to leave, I will," Peter offered.

"You're already here. Without food," He grunted, going back for his notes and depositing them on his bed, to be sorted out again later.

"But I did bring coffee," Peter corrected, his voice a little colder than before. "The food's on it's way. And you didn't answer the question. Would you like me to leave?"

He rubbed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, not sure how to proceed. What did you say to fake soulmates doing something invasive in the process of doing something nice? His psychology classes hadn't covered that. "I didn't google you, or look up your address. That's-" Stalking.

"An invasion of privacy," Peter supplied after an awkward pause, his voice quiet, lacking the usual clipped edge or amusement.

"If we're being polite about it, yeah," He snapped. "You're not dumb enough to think this is cute, which means you thought I was dumb enough to think it was okay."

"I'm sorry."

Stiles glanced back down, immediately felt suspicious. Not because of the easy apology, but because Peter's expression was one of genuine contrition, none of his typical,  _infuriating_  overconfidence in evidence. "I get the feeling you don't apologize often."

"I don't, but I'm aware that-" Peter's mouth twisted in a quick grimace, there and gone again. "I don't think you're dumb, to be honest I didn't consider the nature of my prying, which was a mistake. You're understandably defensive of your personal space. I violated that. I'd react much more poorly if someone intruded on mine."

"How much more poorly?" He challenged, picking up the coffee and taking a sip. It had cooled it down enough to gulp, and he did, praying for the quick rush of caffeine to hit and bring some sense of humanity with it.

"Thinking of doing it now?"

"If I am?" It would be the least Peter deserved. And unless he had a state of the art security system, Stiles could probably break into his house. Not for anything nefarious, maybe leaving a note somewhere inconspicuous and unexpected, like in the fridge. Just enough to give Peter the same sensation of vulnerability.

"I'd consider us even, and receive you as graciously as circumstances allowed. Anyone else? I'd need a good attorney, and that's only if the body ever surfaced."

"That's- Somewhat disturbing, but thanks for the honesty," He tried, leaning back against the counter. "So you're really territorial. Note to self, never show up at your place unannounced."

"My house isn't what I care about."

That- Oh. "Your boats."

Peter's smile was inexplicably pleased. "Correct."

"Huh." That actually sounded reasonable. He must be more fried than he thought. "I should push you down the stairs."

"I did offer to leave. Though I'd prefer the standard, graceful exit, if I have the option."

"You can stay," He grumbled. "Your boats. Did you ever tell me their names? All boats have names, right?"

"The Carte Blanche and the Rúnda."

"The Carte Blanche," He said abruptly, shaking his head. "That's incredibly spot on."

"Perhaps more than you think, but not in the manner you're assuming."

Stiles gave him a resting bitchface. "So you're not a pushy asshole that does whatever he wants?"

"I'm not going to offer to leave again. I'll go, and you won't be forced to endure my presence."

"That's not a very effective threat when I'm pissed at you."

"I'm not sure you understand. I won't be returning here, or returning your calls."

"Wait, you're blackmailing me," Stiles said slowly, his anger returning full force. "Because I'm mad about something  _you_  did."

"No. You're free to tell me to leave right now and not contact you until you're ready, and I'll stay away until contacted. What I won't tolerate is someone keeping me in their presence just so they can have the satisfaction of grinding my nose in a mistake, regardless of my apology and promise not to repeat it. You're justifiably angry. If you want to let off steam, do it. Don't take cheap, passive aggressive shots after changing the subject."

He blinked stupidly, surprised at the downright eerie mildness of Peter's tone. It was definitely worse than being yelled at. "Was that a really long winded way of telling me to stop behaving like a child? Because it kind of felt like it."

"In effect, though it's a decent piece of advice to consider for future relationships."

He nodded once, wondering when he'd blinked and the night had changed so abruptly. "So what does carte blanche mean?"

"It literally translates to blank check," Peter said, voice smoothing out into it's baseline easiness. "While it can be a metaphor for an easily abused contract, it's also been used as a metaphor for full pardons and freedom."

Okay. Not hard to tell which one Peter considered correct. "What does rúnda mean?"

"It's gaelic. The Secret."

"Which one did you sail in Italy?"

"The Rúnda. She's the smaller of the two, though the one I prefer. She's still docked there."

"Sounds like some separation anxiety there," He suggested, sitting down and bracing his elbows on the table. "Why leave it docked in another country?"

"Because it's easier than having her shipped back and forth every time I have a spare week."

Wow. "So, you go back a lot."

"Not as often as I'd like."

He rolled the tone around more than the words. Muted longing, hard to hear unless it was quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat, and easily missed if a person didn't know it personally. Stiles did, and wished he didn't. Empathizing with Peter was annoying, at least while he was still trying to figure out if he really was okay with the guy sitting in his apartment.

"How did you get into sailing?"

"I was in college and one of the richer students took us out on his father's yacht. After-" Peter inhaled sharply before exhaling, a painful looking thing that sounded too loud in the quiet. "I came into some money and bought a boat and books on sailing. I spent a few months on the east coast figuring out how it worked."

"You didn't get training or take a class?"

"It wasn't the brightest way to learn, but it was what I needed at the time."

His question concerning that puzzling statement was abruptly cut off. The intercom buzzed again and Peter walked over, as if he lived there, and answered, then buzzed the delivery boy up. When someone knocked, he watched the door open and saw Peter and the delivery boy attempting to juggle for a moment before his manners kicked in and he went to help.

"Oh man, Bettolona's," Stiles groaned when the smell of food hit, his stomach gurgling in unison.

"Still upset?" Peter asked, feigning innocence so poorly that Stiles couldn't stop a disdainful snort.

"I maintain the right to do something invasive and shady in the future," He declared, accepting the bags. "How much food is there?"

"Enough, I hope."

"For an entire fraternity?"

Peter gave him an arch look and Stiles would have raised both hands if they were free. Instead he settled putting the food on the table and pulling down dishes while Peter finished tipping the kid. He opened the smaller box and saw pastiera napoletana and his stomach gave another eager grumble.

"That's dessert," Peter told him, closing the box and moving it to the counter. Stiles would have glared, except the carton he opened had fried artichoke hearts in it.

"I forgive you," He groaned, his mouth watering. Maybe Peter wouldn't mind if he just grabbed a piece with his fingers-

As if guessing his intentions, Peter grabbed the carton and sat it on the table. "It didn't even take candy."

"Cake is close," He shrugged, sitting down. "Sorry about snapping, it's just-"

"Finals and privacy," Peter finished, taking his seat much more gracefully. "I understand. I was wrong, and I'll call from now on."

It was difficult to stay pissed when Peter seemed to get exactly why he was so pissed and was making an effort to assure him it wouldn't happen again. As long as he wasn't just saying it, which was entirely possible. There was no way to tell, except time. Resolving to end it if it happened again, Stiles speared a chunk of artichoke with his fork, then looked up. "You said you had a long day?"

"An investment didn't do as well as predicted, my client was upset."

"Isn't that sort of the nature of the beast though?"

"Yes," Peter nodded before taking a bite and chewing slowly. "But my job is to anticipate which investments will succeed. When they don't, my judgment was off."

"You make it sound like it tanked."

Peter leveled a flat look in his direction. "It did."

"Oh." Shit. They were both batting a thousand tonight.

The silence was awkward, Peter busying himself with his dinner. Stiles opened one of the pizza boxes and pulled out a slice, then glanced back over at Peter, who had looked up, sensing the question.

"Will your client have to live in a place like this?"

"No," Peter sighed, looking done with the subject. "Their net worth is still enough to purchase a few small islands. They'll recover what was lost in short order."

Stiles' mind boggled at the concept. Who the fuck would miss money when they already had that much? "Then they can shut up and you should ignore them if they're dicks about it. Shit happens. As long as you still have the client and the job, no need to worry, right? Make another investment tomorrow, ta-da. More money."

"That's an extremely simplistic view of how it works."

"I know nothing about finance, but it's not like the world ended. There's always another day, another investment, isn't there?"

"I thought you weren't an optimist."

"I've been studying mice models. Cute, adorable mice used for experimentation. If I'm not optimistic I might defect and start some sort of animal liberation guerrilla team."

"Sounds drastic."

Stiles expelled a weary sigh. "I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but sometimes it feels like I'm never going to be done with school."

"Don't be in so much of a rush."

"I'll never get my youth back?" Stiles teased, relaxing and taking a bite of pizza, Peter's sour look worth the cheap shot.

"Some things get better with age. I much prefer now to my college years, but life is short."

"One could argue too short for finals with Saenger and Gibson," He snorted.

"Yet you'll go anyway, and do well."

"You're putting an incredible amount of faith in my brain not exploding before then."

"You're intelligent and extremely driven. It's an observation. Faith is completely groundless and relatively useless besides."

Stiles felt his cheeks heating up at the offhand remark, how easily Peter had complimented him, making it sound like nothing at all. He was still gaping when Peter looked up, hastily shoved pizza in his mouth to cover the lapse.

There was still an entire pizza left when they put everything in the fridge and opened the box with the cake in it.

"Thanks, I needed this more than I thought."

"It's alright. We've both had a long day."

His long, happy sigh at the first bite echoed in the small apartment. "God, I forgot how good this was." Peter huffed a laugh, drawing his gaze away from the cake on his plate and back across the table. "What? It's good."

"I don't doubt how much you're enjoying it," He commented, going back to his slice and offering nothing more on the matter.

Stiles cleared the plates and washed them, keenly aware of Peter behind him, probably examining his tiny corner of New York. There wasn't much to see, the entirety of his life packed into the little studio and out on display. It was functional, but not impressive by any standards.

He tried not to feel self conscious about it, drying his hands and turning to lean against the counter.

Peter was watching him, not looking around. Huh. Maybe less impressive than he thought. Wow, what a depressing thought.

"I'm staying in the city this week for work. If you'd like we can have dinner again and you can take a break."

It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Peter how important his finals were, but he found himself nodding instead. "Yeah, alright."

Peter donned his jacket and offered a lopsided smile. "Have a good evening. Don't work too hard."

"You either," Stiles said, turning it into a farewell as Peter saw himself out, the door closing gently behind him.

The apartment felt even smaller when he sat on his bed to organize his notes.

* * *

He chewed his lip, stared at his phone and tried to figure out if he was being childish. It wasn't necessary, exactly, but it might be a welcome reprieve from the seriousness of the weekend. His impending finals and Peter's work had left them both in their own worlds, saying little, what sparing conversation there had been distracted and easily forgotten.

Maybe they both needed a few minutes to goof off, a break from the monotony. At worst Peter would just think he was immature. Given the reason they knew each other at all, immaturity didn't seem all that terrible in comparison. He scrolled through the numbers and called Peter, jamming the phone between his ear and shoulder while he tried to find the document with his notes from his midterm.

"Hello Stiles," Peter greeted, tapping sounding, tinny in the background. Computer keys echoing his as he tried typing in another name in the search box.

"Hey, are you going to be in town tonight?"

"I can extend my stay for another evening, why?"

"Meet me at my place at eleven, or eleven thirtyish, if you're not busy."

"Why?"

"Is it after curfew at the senior center?" He asked, rolling his eyes at the annoyed buzzing sound coming from Peter's throat. "Just do it."

* * *

"You seem excited," Peter said in lieu of greeting when he opened the door that evening.

"Kind of am. Nervous too," Stiles admitted. The studio was cleaner than the last time Peter had seen it, everything neatly organized, spines of books lining up, bed made, table cleared. It gave the illusion of more space. "My final with Saenger is tomorrow, and it's probably going to be the hardest."

"You've studied," Peter assured him calmly. "You'll be fine."

"Do you want something to drink before we go out?"

"We're going out?"

"Yeah."

"It's after eleven."

"I'm aware."

"You have a final tomorrow."

"So very, incredibly aware," Stiles groaned, opening the fridge. "I've got water and soda."

"Water's fine."

He tossed a bottle to Peter and grabbed another before grabbing his keys and ushered him out with flailing hand gestures and locking up behind him.

"I just came up these," Peter sighed, beginning to walk down the stairs. "You're a terrible host."

"I gave you water," Stiles said with a cheeky grin that Peter couldn't see.

The air was warm and muggy, a hint of what was to come in the following weeks. Stiles strolled easily down the sidewalk next to Peter, ignoring his questioning glances.

He checked his phone again. Eleven forty nine.

"How was the ride down?"

"I'm thinking of driving again, instead of taking the train," Peter sighed.

"It can't be that bad."

"It's not, but I make enough to avoid minor inconveniences."

"Snob," Stiles teased lightly.

"Your point?"

"Oh my god that was a  _joke_."

"Why deny little truths?" Peter asked breezily, nose tilting up just a fraction as if to emphasize his point. "I am a bit of a snob."

"You ate a five dollar bucket of wings yesterday. A snob wouldn't do that."

"That's New York," Peter countered, jogging up the steps.

"Okay, a snob would have freaked out when he got the sauce all over his shirt."

"Shirts can be replaced."

"I'm not sure if that's a healthy attitude or the mark of brainwashed consumerism."

"Both."

"But still not snobbish."

"Are you actually defending my character?"

"Maybe. A little," Stiles said, holding his thumb and forefinger together, almost touching. "It needs all the help it can get."

"I'm hurt."

"You lie."

"Caught," Peter deadpanned, raising both hands before opening the water bottle and drinking. Stiles almost gave in to the urge to hip check him, if only to see him sputter a bit. It was difficult to imagine when, so far, Peter had been the very picture of composed ease, no matter what was going on. From apologizing to wiping sauce off of his -probably insanely expensive- dress shirt.

"Here," He said a few minutes later, stopping and looking around at the other students filtering in, grouping into small clusters. "This is probably the best spot."

"For what?"

"Just wait," He said, checking his phone again. Eleven fifty-eight.

The first scream rang out, a gut wrenching bellow that echoed across the campus. An answering screech drowned it out, followed by another and another until all corners of the campus were filled with the sounds of screams converging.

"There's a pillow fight-" He glanced over at Peter, who was staring, glassy eyed and pale, at absolutely nothing. "Peter?"

He grabbed Peter's elbow and shook, was stunned when Peter's hand shot out and circled his wrist, fingers digging in hard enough that he could feel the bones of Peter's hand grinding against his. "Peter! Hey!" The grip didn't slacken, too tight and painful.

"Peter!"

There was still no answer, the screams only continuing, the few people around them beginning to join in. Panicking, he grabbed Peter's forearm and began pulling, trying to lead him back the way they'd come. It was like trying to move a statue planted firmly in the ground.

Finally,  _finally_  Peter began to follow, eyes still distant and unfocused but his feet moving, one in front of the other in the march of an automaton. Stiles guided him, avoiding stairs and walking down the grassy inclines, trying to find some place where the screaming would at least be muffled. But it was coming from everywhere, which had been the point. Every building on the campus with people in it was echoing with noise.

The screaming tapered off, then ended completely, but Peter didn't come to. Stiles' arm had long gone numb, the pain dulled to a quiet shadow of pressure. He couldn't wiggle his fingers anymore.

"Peter," He tried again, shaking his arm. "Come on, snap out of it."

Still nothing, no sense of awareness or recognition.

He had to pull and tug at Peter again, forcing him to move. It took several minutes to get him started again, Stiles cajoling and urging him, the words mostly for his own comfort until he got him to a bench to sit down. He pushed at Peter's shoulder with his free hand, mirroring what Peter had done to him more than a week before in the park.

The death grip on his wrist began to ease until he could pull it free. Awareness brightened Peter's eyes before a spasm of agonized grief contorted his features. Stiles took an unconscious step back, felt like he was seeing something he, that no one was supposed to see. Just as abruptly a mask came up, hiding the confusing mix of emotions that had played across Peter's face.

But it had happened. He couldn't have imagined it. He wouldn't  _want_  to imagine it.

"Are you okay?" Stiles murmured, wrist almost entirely numb, a faint dull throb beginning as blood sluggishly began flowing back into his hand.

"Yes. I didn't expect that, I suppose. I should have, Cornell did the same thing. I forgot." The sentences were clear but choppy, too loud puffs and exhales punctuating them as Peter looked anywhere but at him.

Bewilderment would have been normal, maybe even a few moments of startled silence. Peter's reaction hadn't been normal. It had been very, very specific, easy to recognize even if Stiles hadn't accumulated dozens of credit hours in psychology classes.

"Sorry I didn't warn you. Campus tradition. Primal screaming. I thought you'd find it funny." Amusing at the very least.

"No, I'm not particularly fond of screaming," Peter said, voice achingly soft and quiet, making Stiles feel like he was supposed to be doing something. Except all those credit hours hadn't prepared him for someone shutting down because of him, because of something he'd done.

"The Teak Hut is open till three all week. Want something to drink?" He blurted, immediately cringing because  _what the fuck was he thinking_? Surrounding themselves with students strung out on caffeine and stress?

"No," Peter said, voice still too soft. "I think I should leave. I have an early start tomorrow. I'm sure you do too."

His wrist ached, sensation returning like pins and knives stabbing clear into the bone. There would definitely be bruises in the morning.

"I'm sorry," He apologized, stepping back again, giving Peter plenty of breathing room as he got to his feet.

"It's nothing you did. Good night."

Peter didn't offer to walk back with him, the way he moved making it perfectly clear he wanted to be alone. Stiles almost ran to follow, to try and help, was held back by the uncertainty of Peter's reception, felt helpless because he had no idea what he  _could_  do even if Peter didn't reject the offer.

Moving in the opposite direction, he kept throwing looks over his shoulder, just in case- But nothing. Peter never showed up, and his phone didn't buzz with a call or a text message. He walked back to his apartment, feet heavier than they'd been departing. Frustration made every step echo in the stairwell and cracked in the slamming of his front door, the sound of him kicking his sneakers off across the room and the thump of his bedframe shifting when he threw himself back onto his mattress.

Stiles stared up at his ceiling, feeling like he'd done something wrong. Even though he told himself that it had been an accident, that he couldn't have anticipated Peter's reaction, even repeating every piece of logic he had didn't disperse the needling sensation of guilt.

* * *

There was a text waiting for him when he woke up, a simple 'good luck today' and nothing else. Still, it was something. Not sure what he'd been expecting after the night before, he turned on his coffee maker and got dressed, still trying to figure out how to respond. His fingers gingerly rubbed his wrist, jolting him back into awareness with a fresh wave of dull, throbbing pain.

In the end he didn't text Peter back before leaving, instead going to Saenger's class. He resolutely ignored the ache of his wrist and tried to separate himself from the confusing mass of questions and sensations - _feelings_ , shit, he really didn't have the gray matter to spare for that confusing nonsense- so he could focus on the test.

It didn't work, but he pulled through before time was called, and sent Peter a quick text saying he'd gotten through it, and thought he'd done well.

Peter didn't call or text to congratulate him or make any plans.

The bruises ached as they solidified into a mottled ring of purple-black.

* * *

It took him three more days of simple 'good luck' texts and a spiraling, seething mass of frustration before he allowed himself to accept that he was  _worried_  about Peter. When the arrangement had turned into something that warranted genuine concern didn't seem important when he thought about Peter's 'episode', how he'd reacted to the sound of people screaming. Even throwing his not inconsiderable experience against it did nothing but tell him it had been a reaction.

Unfortunately, it also didn't make Stiles feel any less guilty for causing it, however unintentionally. A selfish, childish part of himself briefly considered cutting Peter off completely. It would be so much easier than dealing with someone so obviously damaged. Then the guilt came back, amplified by his own willingness to turn his back.

He tried to call, not even sure what he would say. Each call went to voicemail. He'd disconnect and leave a text instead. A text would come later, saying 'client' or 'meeting', terse explanations that did nothing to diminish the sensation of being avoided.

* * *

Friday, three hours after his last final was handed in and he was laying on his bed, contemplating the bottle of whiskey, his phone trilled for the first time all week. Peter's name blinked steadily on the screen.

"Hey," He said, waiting for Peter to speak first, maybe explain what had happened on Sunday.

"You last final was today, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I thought we might go out to celebrate, if you don't already have plans."

First instinct was to ask if he was okay, quickly throttled in favor of nodding, his body reacting as if Peter was there to see the confusion he was trying to hide. "Okay. That uh- I need to grab a shower. I've been stewing in my own funk for the last couple of days." He'd barely been  _functional_ , tunnel vision blocking out everything but his finals and the sinking feeling that he'd done some sort of irreversible damage to someone that hadn't really deserved it.

"Are you feeling something casual or something a bit more fancy?"

"Whatever's fine."

"The Cannibal then. It's right near a station. I can send the address."

"Sounds awesome."

"Say, two hours?"

"Sure."

"I'll see you then."

"M'bye," He mumbled, too many words in his mouth to try for anything else before hanging up.

He showered, dried his hair and looked for something to wear, finally settling on a pair of jeans and a thin long sleeved shirt. It was a cool day, cool for summer at least, and a little windy. Nothing remarkable, he hoped as he tugged the sleeves all the way down, stretching the fabric a little.

* * *

"Wow," Stiles said, looking around the restaurant and trying to figure out if they were going to order from the deli and eat out or if Peter expected them to cram themselves around the bar. "This isn't what I was expecting."

"We're sitting outside," Peter said, carefully guiding him past the bar, a hand in the small of his back. Stiles couldn't stop the knee jerk response to flinch, his back arching away from Peter's hand. A waiter saw them and gestured for them to follow, not looking back to see whether or not they followed.

The back was a small fenced in alley with several picnic tables, lights danging across, nothing but empty glass bulbs in the daytime. In contrast the packed inside, only a few tables were taken, large plates of food and beer bottles dominating the tables between the different groups. Conversation filtered out in bits and pieces, words scattering and hitting the brick walls towering on either side.

The waiter gestured and handed them menus before disappearing back inside.

"How's your week been?" He began, glancing down at the menu and frowning. He didn't recognize half the items listed, even though everything was clearly in English. There was a noticeable lack of bread or vegetables, though.

"Not as long as yours, I imagine. You look tired."

"Isn't that a polite way of saying I look old? Or is that just women?"

"It means you look tired, understandably," Peter told him, relaxing into the normal light banter. "I'm still not convinced you've slept the last couple of weeks."

Because he hadn't, and because Peter was proving to be more perceptive than he let on. "It's over though, so," He shrugged. "My brain has a while to recuperate before I have to do it again. How's work been?"

"One of my colleagues left for Lazard, and took some of our clients with him," Peter sighed. "The funny thing is, he was about to become a partner, supposedly. I'm not sure if Jessup's just saying that or if it's true."

"Sounds rough," He tried, not sure what else to say. Peter didn't seem particularly upset or happy about it. "Does that happen often?"

"No, actually. Our firm's one of the better ones, small, discriminating," Peter waved a hand, indicating things Stiles was sure he should probably know, but didn't. He pretended to anyway, listening to Peter gloss over his week practically living at the office; the power vacuum and the quiet and not so quiet attempts to fill it, attempting to appease his boss or just stay out of his way, careful evaluations and discreet terminations of anyone that had known about the incident beforehand. He didn't seem invested in it, aside from a few pointed comments about the ridiculous lengths people were going to in an attempt to fill the former colleague's position.

It was thoroughly mundane, broken only by the waiter coming to get their orders, Peter suggesting the chef's selection. Stiles glanced at the menu and nodded agreement, figuring it was easier than trying to navigate the different plates. At least he wouldn't end up ordering three appetizers.

"What about you? Surely you did more than go to finals," He prompted.

"One of the guys in my BME class stood up in the middle of the final and let out this really loud 'fuck this', then proceeded to rip up the exam and mutter about becoming a gym teacher. Humphrey wasn't even surprised."

"Was the test that difficult?"

"Not comparatively, but yeah, I guess." The class hadn't even been required for him, but the professor had gotten his attention with a lecture on more effective drug delivery for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders. He and Humphrey shared the same interest in the topic and it had become one of his favorite classes. "I keep forgetting some people take some classes because they have to, I guess. I enjoyed the class so it was easy for me."

"And BME, that's-"

"Biomedical engineering."

"It pays to be passionate about something," Peter said, appearing fascinated. Stiles nodded, feeling heat creeping up his neck and threatening to spill to his face under the unabashed interest.

The waiter came back with their appetizers and beer. Stiles mentioned the minor breakdowns he'd seen that week, none of them as obvious as the guy from his class, but entertaining in their own ways, including at least two outbursts in the library, one of them a librarian that had finally had it with students whining about books being checked out. Peter listened attentively, making pointed observations or guessing about each student's future, turning it into a game where each possibility was more outlandish than the next.

The waiter came back with more beer and another platter covered in sliced cheeses and meats.

He swiped a piece of the salami and took a bite, immediately gagging. Peter stared as Stiles tried to swallow the bite he'd taken. "Salty," He commented, trying to hide his expression in his glass. Would it be rude to chug all of it in one go?

"It's supposed to be," Peter chuckled. Stiles gave him a betrayed glance before looking back down at the platter.

He didn't attempt to eat anymore, slowly draining his beer and watching Peter eat. It was neat, almost fastidious, Peter pressing his fingers to a napkin between each slice of cheese and meat.

"I'm sorry you don't like it. I can ask them to bring something else," Peter suggested, frowning slightly and pushing the platter to the side.

"Nah, it's fine. I put my dad on a low salt diet and it stuck with me when I left California," He explained. "So I'm just sensitive to salt. There's nothing wrong with it."

"You controlled your father's diet?" Peter asked, eyebrows inching up towards his hairline.

"I tried," He grumped. "Asshole kept sneaking cheeseburgers."

"Was there a reason for this?"

"Cholesterol levels. His parents both died of heart attacks before they were seventy."

"You really care about him." It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact colored by- By something, though Stiles couldn't figure out a name for it, except that he hadn't imagined it. Feeling curiously naïve, he covered his lack of response by draining the rest of his beer. Peter took another slice of salami and rolled it up, taking a pointed bite.

The waiter came back out and set two plates down, massive sandwiches dominating the plate, leaking sauce onto the edges.

"Pig's Head Cuban, chef's specialty," The waitress informed them, bobbing and promising to bring out more beer.

"Why did she have to tell me that?" He whined pathetically, staring at the sandwich. Pig's head. He liked pigs. Granted, he loved bacon, but bacon didn't come from the  _head_.

"It's just meat Stiles," Peter chuckled. "I'm sure you've eaten stranger and not known."

"Oh no, I've totally known. Melissa makes the best tacos using beef tongue, but." But he also didn't care about cows one way or the other. And they really were the best tacos he'd ever had.

"Just try it. If you don't like it, you can order something else."

Giving the sandwich a wary eye, he cut it in half and picked it up, trying not to let the kraut and meat spill out everywhere. Peter was watching him again, brow arched in a challenge. Stiles gave him his best bitchface and took a bite.

"Oh god," He groaned after swallowing.

"Good or bad?"

"Fucking delicious. I want to marry it."

"A bit morbid, considering."

"Consumption as an act of love?" He suggested, trying to figure out how to cram as much sandwich into his mouth as he could without dislocating his jaw.

"The rumors are true, psychology truly does attract the crazy ones," Peter observed in a dry voice before taking another bite.

"What's a little psychosis between man and sandwich?" Stiles replied airily before taking a theatrically vicious bite. The waitress came back and set down two more bottles of beer and freshly chilled glasses, asking them if they liked everything. Stiles' mouth was full so he nodded enthusiastically, waving a middle finger at the reproving sound Peter made.

They ate in silence, Stiles making a valiant attempt to be half as neat as Peter, but his sandwich spilled it's guts all over the plate, and he eventually gave up to eat with his fork.

"That was awesome," he said as Peter paid the bill. He pulled out his own wallet and dropped the tip on the table.

"Even if it was pig's head?"

"I've gotten over finding pigs cute. They're too tasty," He laughed, following Peter through the restaurant and back out onto the sidewalk. "Want to go for a walk? I feel like I've been sitting down for a week straight."

"I might be amenable," Peter nodded, rolling his shoulders. "The park's not far."

The flush of beer made his cheeks warm in the summer air, a steady buzz making his laugh a little louder, his smile a little more ready. The week of worry became a distant thing, almost forgotten as they walked to the park, elbows occasionally knocking together in the crowds at different intersections.

"Tell me a sailing story," He demanded, feeling lighter than he had in months.

"There was a time a dockworker thought I was dead," Peter told him, his smile a flash of white teeth and flush cheeks. "I'd skirted the edge of a medicane, it's a type of storm in the Mediterranean," He clarified. "My radio was shot, the electrical systems needed an overhaul, it was a miracle the engine hadn't given out just to spite me," He chuckled, the sound rolling through Stiles, making him want to hear it again. "I made it into the wharf, docked, and passed out. I didn't even go to sign in or pay the fee, just fell asleep on the deck the minute I'd tied off. I was just going to sit down for a moment to rest, then didn't get up."

"Seriously, dead though? He didn't check your pulse or anything?"

"According to him he did, though I have my doubts. He probably didn't want to touch a corpse."

He pulled up his sleeves, utterly oblivious to anything but Peter's tale. He was laughing at Peter's imitation of the dockworker's shock when Peter stopped abruptly.

"Huh?"

Peter's hand shot out and grabbed his, staring down at it. The ring of bruises circled his wrist, standing out like diseased flesh against the paleness of his skin.

"This is from the other night." It wasn't a question but a demand for confirmation.

"You didn't realize," Stiles told him, trying to pull his hand free. Peter let it drop with barely any effort, as if burned. "I'm sorry, about all that. I didn't warn you, and I should have."

"That's not your fault."

"It's not yours either," He shot out. "Look, you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. Don't blame yourself either. It's not bad, and you weren't really- You weren't there. I get it."

"I forgot, psychology classes," Peter sneered, not looking at him.

"No, panic attacks and an aversion to touch," He admitted plainly, the accompanying sense of vulnerability he'd grown used to absent. Peter already knew, and Peter was damaged in his own way. It wasn't kinship, but acceptance, maybe. At least he accepted it, their mutual damage making him feel less self conscious. He was beginning to wonder if maybe that was how Peter knew how to interact with him without constantly setting him off. "So, we're both screwed up. We can get matching shirts."

His blatant levity did  _something_  to Peter, who tilted his head as if perplexed, then proceeded to shake it slowly. "For someone that presents himself as straightforward, you're astoundingly inconsistent."

"Welcome to the human condition," He said, grinning. "Besides, I'm a neverending surprise my dad, and he's known me for almost thirty years."

"Which I'm sure is a constant source of joy," Peter bit out sarcastically.

"Do we need to call it a night so you can cool off? Because I gotta tell you, I was having a good time. I'd hate for a shitty mood to ruin it."

"A shitty mood?" Peter repeated slowly, hands curling into loose fists.

Well, damn. He'd been trying to keep things light, apparently Peter was more sensitive than he thought.

"You're upset I saw something personal. I'd, actually, I wouldn't be angry someone saw me during a panic attack, but I'd hate it. So I get it. If you want some time to cool off, or if this," He said, gesturing between them. "Has gone too far to be comfortable, fine." He wasn't even sure if he was talking about just the episode anymore, or if this was how the thing between them seemed less and less like a setup and felt like it was becoming a genuine friendship.

"What about your family?"

"I'll figure it out. I'd rather deal with that than you seeing whatever it was any time you look at me."

Which was a little more honest than he'd intended to be. Maybe it was the beer. Or sleep deprivation and beer. Sleep deprivation, beer and the staggering relief of finals ending.

"I don't want to talk about it," Peter finally said.

"I'm not asking you to."

Peter began walking again and, not being told to go away, Stiles decided to follow, catching up to him and matching his pace.

"I took after my mom, looks wise," He began, shoving his hands in his pockets. "After she died, my dad would look at me and see her. I could see it, how much it hurt him, right before he'd look away. I hated knowing I did that, even though I couldn't help how I looked."

"I don't see them when I look at you," Peter finally told him, staring straight ahead.  _Them_. Another tiny shred of information added to the sparing little he knew about Peter's life. "I would like to continue, if you feel up to it."

"Why wouldn't I?"

Peter leveled cool blue eyes in his direction.

"What?"

The stare turned puzzled before Peter was shaking his head again. "You're never boring."

Stiles rocked on his heels, wondering if he would be off base thinking that was a rare compliment coming from Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Columbia has a mass of finals based traditions, including Primal Scream night and a massive pillow fight. Also. Tunnels. >.>


End file.
